Language and our/My Reality

Kenneth Burke said that "man is a symbol using, symbol misusing animal" (yes, a bit sexist with the language, but you get the gist). He also said that we create our reality by and through books and our symbols systems:

Take away our books, and what little do we know about history, biography, even something so "down to earth" as the rleative position of seas and continents? What is our "reality" for today (beyound the paper-thin line of our own particular lives) but all this clutter of symbols about the past combined with whatever things we know mainly through maps, magazines, newspapers, and the like about the present? (Langauge as Symbolic Action 5)

When I first read this I think I just read it. I didn't really apply it. For me Burke, or rather studying Burke, has been a struggle and an off and on again affair. I came to Burke as a grad student years ago and now return to him for help in my own teaching and writing. But today I saw through even my own terministic screens and I could see how we can become so cluttered with symbol systems that aren't are own, but that come from other places, that we loose touch on what our own understanding(s) is(are).

We cling on to words because thats really all we have for understanding our world. I guess there is something underneath language- something gutteral, like raw emotion, but even when we go to explain those feelings we are grasping for terms. I think about when I gave birth to babe, there are very few words that can really wrap themselves around the dynamics of that event. So, all we have are words and we use them the best we can. Is there any way possible to declutter our symbol systems? To really see and understand what we think or know?